September 14, 2018

NYPD prostitution scandal

When ever corruption scandals breaks, I always notice two things:

1) The "blue was of silence" is more fiction than fact. Sure, cops in collusion won't talk, at first. But that's hardly a blue wall. I mean, given people's natural inclination not to snitch on their friends and family, cops snitch on other cops quite regularly. Probably more so than other occupations. Why? A) cops don't like bad cops, B) when push comes to shove, people CYA and say "I'm not going to risk my pension for that dirty cop I never liked anyway."

2) The dollar amount some cops are willing to screw up their lives, their reputations, and their valuable pension. It's chump change. Lazy cops retire. Bad cops retire. But dirty cops rarely retire because being able to rat out a dirty cop is a great get-out-of-jail-free card. And that card is something other crooks find very useful. I mean, just put in 20 to 25 years and they pay you for the rest of life! And you screw it all for $100 here and $200 there?

But here we go, as reported in the Times: "One detective was allowed to pay $20 for an encounter with a prostitute that would normally cost $40." A cop gave his all for $20 off a blow job.

This was a "multi-year NYPD investigation" started by a top from a cop. But a multi-year NYPD investigation means there are a lot of well crossed T's and beautifully dotted I's.

Last I heard, 7 cops and about 20 civilians were arrested.

It's also interesting when internal PD investigation brings down dirty cops. Cops are like, "Great, system finally worked! Stupid dirty cops got what they had coming." Cop-sceptics are like, "Blue Wall of Silence is proof police are irrevocable corrupt!"

Also, for police and sex-workers alike, prostitution should be regulated and legal.

5 comments:

That $20 caught my attention too. There has to be some other reason, and my guess is that he was already involved with the cops and others who were running this show. Maybe for some of the other cops too, personal connections and obligations and pressures might have mattered more than the money -- especially for the cops who were getting a very small honorarium for their services.

I’m a long time fan of your blog (been reading it for over 5 years) and follow you closely on your Twitter account. It doesn’t really fit with this post, but I feel the need to point out the tremendous uptick in gun violence in Philadelphia over the past couple weeks. There has been such a dramatic increase, and yet to my dismay (but not surprise), the media has ignored it completely. Thus, I feel the need to tell someone who might care. Philadelphia has some of the best shooting data of any city (https://data.phila.gov/visualizations/shooting-victims), and when I looked at the data for September, I was shocked to learn that 159 people have been shot in Phiadelphia through the first 16 days of the month. To put that in perspective, there has only been one *complete* month going back to Jan 2015 (where the data set begins) in which that many people were shot (Aug 2015 160 victims). The 22nd district alone, which only has about 67,000 people, has already had over 30 people shot for the month! Obviously 2 weeks is too short of a period to make any dramatic conclusions, but to me this is a big deal. Interestingly the dramatic increase in shootings began two days after the indictment of Officer Pownall, but I know better than to make a conclusion that they are related.

I had no idea. Do me a favor and, if in month, this is still going on, let me know. Honestly, truthfully, just between you and me, Phili ain't on my radar. But I do hope it's not going the way of Baltimore and Chicago.

The only variable I do know about the election of the "progressive"prosecutor. I am curious if things will get better or worse. I hope for the former. But I doubt it. We shall see.

Peter Moskos is a professor and chair of the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He is the director of John Jay's NYPD Executive Master's Program, on the faculty of the City University of New York's Doctoral Programs in Sociology, and a Senior Fellow of the Yale Urban Ethnography Project.

Moskos graduated from Princeton (AB) and Harvard (PhD) and was a Baltimore City Police Officer. He has authored three books: Cop in the Hood, In Defense of Flogging, and Greek Americans.

Me in 2000

Me in 2016

Critical Acclaim for Cop in the Hood

Cops like the book, Cop in the Hood:

"Should be made mandatory reading for every recruit in the Balto. City Police Academy. ... I am so proud that you were a Baltimore Police Officer and a good one." —Colonel (ret.) Margaret Patton, Baltimore City Police Department

"I just finished reading the last footnote! Great stuff." —NYPD Lt. Detective (ret.) David Durk

"I have been a cop now for 23 years and your book really captured what it's like to be a street cop. . . . Great book, great insights." —Detective-Commander Joseph Petrocelli

"Moskos strips away hard to decipher cop-speak and sociological mumbo jumbo and presents something easily digestible by the average reader.... Moskos is a veteran of a war [on drugs] he disagrees with. But he has walked the walk, respects the brotherhood and, as far as I’m concerned, still bleeds blue." —Pepper Spray Me

"Truly excellent.... Mandatory reading for all fans of The Wire and recommended for everyone else." —Tyler Cowen

"Ethnographic chutzpah.... Perhaps the best sociological account on what it means to police a modern ghetto.... Tells a great story centered around notions of race, power and social control." —Andrew Papachristos, American Journal of Sociology

"[An] objective, incisive and intelligent account of police work. Moskos's graphic descriptions of the drug culture... are the most detailed and analytical to be found anywhere. —Arnold Ages, Jewish Post & Opinion

It could have profound consequences.... In Defense of Flogging forces the reader to confront issues surrounding incarceration that most Americans would prefer not to think about. —Mansfield Frazier, The Daily Beast

“Flogging” is intriguing, even in — or because of — its shocking premise. As a case against prisons, Mr. Moskos' is airtight. —Washington Times

Compelling… Although his outrageous idea may conjure up unsavory reminders of U.S. slavery, by the end of “In Defense of Flogging,” Moskos might just have you convinced. —Salon

One of the very few public-policy books I've encountered that goes past wringing its hands over a societal problem.... Moskos's sharp little volume has a potential audience far beyond the experts. —Rich Fisher, Public Radio Tusla

A very important work... provocative, timely, and well-argued. I agree with you completely that our criminal justice system is out of control.... On one hand, the problems seem intractable. On the other hand, we're doomed if we don't do something about it. —(Former) CIA Agent John Kiriakou

It was, in truth, a book that I could not put down. I read it in two sittings (my butt was hurting after the first!)... You did well. —Gary Alan Fine, John Evans Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University.